The End of Organizational Silence
Embracing transparency empowers you and drive innovation (beyond the buzz words)
Transparency is vital to create a culture of openness in which everyone’s voice is heard.
Organizations moving towards more agile working methods focus on business process improvements. This means that anything that does not have a related business goal, ROI or other measurable metrics can be seen as less important. Transparency is one example.
A call for transparency may trigger emotion because it can threaten the concept of hierarchy or levels of knowledge and make people feel their secrets may be exposed. This means leadership must understand the value of listening and having an open mind when it comes to what they may hear.
Here are some tips for using transparency to create a healthy workplace culture.
Be sensitive
The notion of transparency, when it is undefined and even once given parameters, can feel personally and professionally risky.
Perhaps it is because people’s careers grew amidst a backdrop of levels of knowledge, and it is all they know; maybe it is because they know there are skeletons in the closet and they are concerned about the company’s reputation — or their own.
Leadership can fear the openness that is needed.
Be aware of who you are speaking with and their background. Be prepared to read your listener and to watch for signs you may have triggered a push-back or withdrawal response.
Consider how the information is being received; know this is not a one-conversation discussion. Start slow if you need to; Rethink your language and approach, and know you must try again.
An open door is not just physical — it is about mindset
Feedback from surveys can quickly become personal, especially where there is a component of anonymity. Understandably, this is why such surveys were often restricted to higher levels of leadership. It may have been under the guise of protecting individual employees or managers, but to some degree, it protected executives from potential exposure.
Opening survey feedback and making that information accessible to a broader audience requires a mindset change from the top levels.
It’s also important to recognize that with transparency comes responsibility. There must be an effort to ensure information is placed in context to be interpreted accurately and anonymized where necessary.
It sounds challenging but transparency is a positive step toward a culture where everyone’s truth can be heard and acknowledged.
Transparency is the start of the end of organizational silence
It should not be a surprise that we cannot remain silent for everyone to be heard.
Operationalizing transparency by making reports, surveys, and other forms of feedback available to all forces us closer to innovation, a step towards allowing everyone to express their thoughts.
This is how we make real change.
This is how we change to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil to know the truth, hear what others say, tell our own reality.
